


Dust, Oxen and Rock n’ Roll

by Toinette93



Series: An Entity, some spaceships, Paris and Queen: a post-apocalyptic utopia AU [1]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Utopia, Bittersweet, Brian is still an astrophysicist in this, Fluff, Gen, In a sense anyway, Memories, Not Beta Read, past Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22913029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toinette93/pseuds/Toinette93
Summary: "Rog? He’s not… Well, he kind of is family, in a sense. He’s an old friend. We’re neighbours these days.”“Well, bring him along, then."---Brian and Roger have had to leave Britain. They remember their days as Queen before London fell.Sandrine needs to understand why that spaceship crashed. She befriends an astro-guitarist in the process.All the while, the world is busy slowly but surely ending---This is the introduction to a longer science-fiction series I am working on. More information in the chapter notes.
Relationships: Brian May & Roger Taylor
Series: An Entity, some spaceships, Paris and Queen: a post-apocalyptic utopia AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646902
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello people !  
> Some more science fiction Queen AU from me, what a surprise. In this particular fic, they are not in space. But don't you worry I am planning to send John exploring outer space real soon.  
> So this is a bit of a different thing from my usual fics. The universe here is one I've been working on for quite a while for an original fiction I am planning to write at some point (hence the OCs that come from that universe).  
> I am using this Queen fanfic to test out a lot of things about this universe. I do have a story arc planned out for the boys (several actually) but don't have enough time to write it in long-fic format and be sure to finish it. So there will be several shorter fics that will be linked together more or less tightly while still being readable independently. I will finish each individual fic with a regular schedule but cannot really promise anything about the series, except that I do know where it's going.  
> This fic is sort of an introduction to this universe, next up will be a John-on-a-spaceship story from John's POV.  
> Sorry for the long explanation, and enjoy !

As she often did, Sandrine was coming home late from work that evening. Those logs from the doomed expedition to the GJ 180 star system were proving quite a challenge. According to all available data, the fourth planet of the system should have been habitable, balmy and comfortable even. And yet, the 50 000 people that had been sent out there on one of the early ships that had left during the tumultuous years after the Revolution, almost a hundred and fifty years ago, had all met an untimely and seemingly gruesome death. She could not fathom why. And since she had to determine whether or not sending a far bigger ship of half a million people, to the third planet of the system, that also read as habitable and in fact very like the fourth planet, she really did not want to make any mistake. She was checking and re-checking the logs, and her own calculations. Behind her no-nonsense glasses that still had the surprising feature of being red, her eyes prickled. It was really time for her to go to sleep. Of course, the ship in those years were cruder. The slow evacuation of the Earth had but started then, and they had learnt a lot since. Still, as crude as those ship had been, they were nonetheless sturdy and not prone to random critical malfunctions. She could not understand why this particular one had crashed.

She had eaten at work and was now in her pyjamas. She made her way to her children’s room and carefully opened the door, looking at the sleeping form of her very own Rosa and Gaël. Both kids had inherited her dark skin and curly hair, although Rosa also had her biological father’s blue eyes. Through the window, Sandrine could see the tip of the Eiffel tower, still standing over some ruined parts of the now almost empty city. At least the iron lady was still there, although for how long she still would, Sandrine did not know. She got back out with a smile on her face, careful not to wake up Rosa who was a light sleeper. Nothing could wake up Gaël once he was asleep.

A little earlier that evening, while she was still at work she had realized she needed help with one hypothesis as to why the ship had crashed all those years ago. She had gone to the ships trajectories section of her astrophysics department. She had been looking more specifically for some expert in comets and asteroids trajectories. She wanted to know if it was possible an unexpected and unrecorded small collision could have been the cause of that crash. She had realized what time it was once she was in the corridor of this part of the department, and then she had almost turned back, not expecting anyone to be there. And then she had heard… music. The soft sound of an electric guitar played softly, almost plaintively. She had thought one of her colleagues must have still been there late and listening to music while working. She had gone on, thinking that maybe it would be someone from the right department. It had been the case. She had knocked, and when she had entered the office, she had seen her colleague put a guitar down. So he had been playing. That required some dedication, to play electric guitar, with electricity rationed as it was, it meant a lot of bike riding to charge batteries. The man in front of her greeted her with the utmost politeness.

They did not know each other yet although she had noticed before his tall, skinny, frame with a mass of long curls around his head. She had even noticed than he almost always left as late as she did, often getting picked up by a smaller blond and energetic man. The tall man, Brian May, the name on the office door taught her, was new here. He was part of a group of British refugees who had arrived in Paris from Cornwall a month ago, the last to leave Britain, which had been slowly consumed by the Entity since London had fallen 12 years prior. Brian and Sandrine worked well together that evening, bouncing ideas and equations off of each other. The man had showed a brand of witty yet earnest kindness that had made it an enjoyable work session. They would have to work some more on the question though. But she could not have avoided to notice how out of place this man had seemed there and she would need Katia’s advice in the morning concerning how to maybe help him fell at home here. Katia was as gentle and friendly as Sandrine was strict and stern, and Sandrine knew she could rely on her to give her good advice when dealing with other people was concerned. She had been through having to flee her home when Colmar had been destroyed when she was little, and even then as an adaptable child, it had hurt. She did not know what it would do to her should it happen now, and he was older than her, appearing to be in his mid-fifties while she was 36 years old.

She had thought Katia would have been asleep, it was very late, but when, having released her bun and taken off her glasses, Sandrine got into bed, her wife surprised her by taking her hand and placing a soft kiss on it. Sandrine smiled, and, in the dark, her hands found her wife’s round cheeks, cupped them and kissed her lips. She could imagine from habit although she could not see them Katia’s piercing blue eyes, and her short orange hair, and the face full of freckles that she had kissed so many times over the years. Katia was her perfect woman, the one of her life her special someone, and every other word for the romantic nomenclature that she had never thought she would use before meeting her.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, Katia. I know how early you start.” she said

“It’s alright, love, I like to see you when you come home, now what kept you that late?”

“That crash, again. I need to understand what happened.”

“You getting any closer?” asked Katia in a tired but not yet sleepy voice.

“I don’t know, maybe. I may have an idea. Something to do with asteroids, but I’m not sure yet.”

“That’s not your field now, is it?”

“No. I worked with a colleague on that one tonight.”

“There was someone still there?”

“Yes. One of those new British scientists. Name Brian May. Had seen him around before but I had not talked to him.”

“Any good?”

“Not bad, actually. Especially that late at night. And so soon after having lost his home.”

Sandrine stopped talking for a while after that, lost in thought. Katia had a fairly good idea what she was thinking about. She was also half falling asleep. She nuzzled into her wife’s thick brown hair and asked:

“Think he’s lonely?”

Sandrine nodded. “Can’t do much about that, now can, I?”

Katia smiled at her wife’s lack of practical sense. Turning away to show she now wanted to sleep she answered:

“Well, just invite him over for dinner one evening. At least you’ll come home earlier that way. And tell him to bring his family, if he’s got any.”

“I don’t know. There’s a guy who picks him up from work sometimes.”

“Well, tell him to bring him then.” Katia grunted, finishing to turn around and closing her eyes.

Before falling asleep, Katia thought that that man’s name seemed familiar somehow, she was sure she had heard it somewhere, although she could not quite place it.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Katia was at work, looking over files to assign evacuated people to one ship or another, when she remembered where she had beard Brian May’s name. In her daughter’s mouth. It was one of the members of Rosa’s favourite rock-band, Queen. With the separations of the world in isolated regions by the Entity, music and culture in general had become a lot more local, but when London had fallen, a lot of British people had fled to the continent, bringing their music with them. And amongst younger generation, the last generation of humans on Earth, as it seemed, it had been the thing to listen to. Rosa could be somewhat enthusiastic and Gaël would partake in whatever mischief his older sister would be planning. That could prove interesting.

Once again Brian and Sandrine had worked together that day. They had talked about it and figured that they would need quite a long time to figure that one out. They had gone to the workers council to explain they would need to work together. Brian was reassigned to Sandrine’s project. After two hours of work, they were arguing on the margin of error on one of their observations.

“We have to find another solution Sandrine. Get observation time from one of the orbital telescopes or something. This data you have, it isn’t complete. I can’t do anything precise enough with it.”

“Brian, the plan you showed me a while ago to calculate trajectories with the data we do have seems pretty good to me. Just, you know, do that.”

“It leaves to many possibilities for error, Sandrine. And you know that. It’s half a million people we are talking about here. We cannot rush this.”

“You know how long it is going to take to get data from one of those telescopes, Brian. With the Entity progressing, they are too often unreachable or offline. We may not have that kind of time. We need to have people on that ship and with a programmed trajectory before too long.”

“Paris is still safe, should be for at least a few more years. And it will be no help to these people if the course that we give sends them into a collision course with an asteroid we did not detect. Good science takes time.”

Did he think she did not know that. She was as much of a scientist as he was, maybe even more, he was good but a bit rusty on some things, as if he had not worked on them for quite a while. But a few years was the official prediction. The world was ending, but they still had some time. Sandrine, however, had her doubts. Her wife’s job was to assign people to ships. And lately she had been more tense than usual. Sandrine could not help but wonder if she knew something herself did not. It was not much to go on but she knew her wife. And predictions had been known to be wrong before. The Entity was not exactly destroying on a schedule.

“Well, they said London was going to be safe for a few years. Look what happened! How many people died. And the ships were ready.”

Sandrine knew the moment she said that how cruel of a thing to say it was. For all she knew he could have been from there.

“I know.” he said quietly “I was there.”

Shit. Sandrine thought. Wrong thing to say.

“Listen, I’ll try and find other ideas to get you more data, and will send the request for telescope time. We might get lucky and get some.”

Brian nodded at that and they went back to work. The hours passed quickly, they ate while working – Sandrine thought that Katia would yell at her if she knew. But she was not going to tell her – and soon it was evening.

The too scientists packed their things and prepared to leave, at a far more reasonable hour than what they had done the day prior. Brian mentioned some musical plans with a friend, and Sandrine answered:

“Yes, I heard you playing yesterday. You are really good at this aren’t you.”

The other smiled at that.

“Well, it was my job, for a while. Still partly is, I suppose.”

“Oh, that would make sense. Well I’m just going home, to see my wife and kids. Nothing all that interesting.”

“Family time is important, though” he said, and she could swear she had seen a flicker of something she could not quite decipher on his face.

“Speaking of this, my wife suggested I invited you for dinner. And of course, if you’ve got family, they are welcome too. Would Saturday night work for you?”

“With pleasure, thank you. My family is, well not here, though, so.”

“What about the man who comes to pick you up at work sometimes.”

“Oh? Rog. He’s not… Well, he kind of is family in a sense. He’s an old friend. We’re neighbours these days.”

“Well, come with him then.”

“All right.”


	3. Chapter 3

Katia was finishing to prepare the dessert. She had always been good at making pastries, and as she was beating the chickpea water into a white to integrate into the almond cream she was preparing, she tried not to get distracted by the smell of the savoury part of the meal Sandrine was cooking. The children would be back from their playdate at Myriam’s soon, and then their guests would be. Everything had to be ready by then.

There, a sparkle of dried raspberries and chunks of pistachios, it was good. She looked up and saw Myriam chatting with Sandrine, her wife looking as thoroughly earnest as ever and Myriam’s startling green eyes a picture of amusement and mirth. Katia concluded Rosa had probably pulled some silly stunt again. The kids were already in their room, getting changed and ready for dinner.

Right on time, the doorbell rang, and Katia and Sandrine went to welcome their visitors. The matter of ration cards had be dealt with at work, and so when Brian and Roger arrived, it was with a bottle of wine. The dinner was enjoyable for all involved. Katia looked at her two kids, who were behaving. They had been lectured and were being quite serious. The conversation went freely. After a while the question of whether allotting resource to try and fight the entity still made any sense at this point in time. It was the political question of the day and it immediately started what appeared to be a well rehearsed debate between the two men. Sandrine was listening intently, and Katia watching with amusement, keeping an eye on the children. Rosa had apparently not recognized the two musicians – Katia had to admit they did not look particularly rock and roll at this particular moment politely eating lentil curry – but the little girl was looking at Brian’s hair with an intense look of concentration on her face, and Katia thought she would probably figure it out.

“There’s no point in trying to counter the Entity now, Brian. Come on. We’ve been trying for one century and a half. We need to focus our resources on evacuating people, we have very little time left. The Earth is dead, we have to accept it.”

“There has been some success in recent experiments, Rog. You can’t ignore that.”

“Yeah, some limited results. Far too slow to work to be of any help to us now, Brian.”

“To us, maybe, but we are not alone on this planet. Most animals survive in Entity territory for some time, far better than humans, but not for very long. Data shows there has been some massive extinctions in the places where the Entity has been there the longest. We can’t let entire species disappear without doing something about it, especially since we’re responsible for the Entity’s arrival in the first place.”

“Species go extinct, it’s part of the planet’s cycle, I’m sure new species will appear and adapt to the Entity. It’ll be a different form of life, sure, but life nonetheless. The Entity attacks whatever is closest to humanoids the hardest. Hey, maybe we’ll get dinosaurs again in a few million years.”

“That would be a normal cycle of extinction if, once again, we were not responsible for it. And you know we are.”

“I haven’t disputed that.” agreed Roger.

That proved to Katia that apparently, they could agree on some things. She had started to doubt it altogether.

“Well, if you don’t dispute that, you have to agree that those other species have as much of a right to survive on this planet as we do. We can’t morally put our own interests so far before theirs as to let whole species disappear while our own is not in danger anymore with all the ships we sent to space. Some of those species have been here longer than us, Rog. For example...”

“Yeah, I know, I know. And now you’re going to go on about badgers.”

“I was not.”

“Well, hedgehogs then. Those two are your favourite examples.”

“Does he like badgers and hedgehogs?” asked Sandrine, curious

“Believe me, he does” answered Roger with a large grin his blue eyes sparkling in amusement. Brian was rolling his.

Katia noticed that Rosa’s brow had furrowed even more as the discussion had shifted to animals. Katia was surprised her daughter had seemed interested at all in a debate that was very much an adult one. Gaël seemed quite fully bored by now. But Rosa had her eyes fixated on their guest’s long curly hair. And when badgers when mentioned, she suddenly jumped from her chair, unable to contain her excitement.

“You’re Brian May!” she said “From Queen!” and then turning to the blond “And you’re Roger Taylor. I love your music.”

“At your service, young lady”, bowed the band’s drummer.

“Thank you, Rosa, I am very glad you like it” asked the guitar player.

Rosa turned to her brother “See, Gaël, you did not want to believe me.”

The little boy nodded in shame, and asked.

“But how can you be mummy’s colleague, Mr May. And why are you other two friends not with you?”

“Well, our dear Brian is a man of many talents” winked Roger, answering the first question.

“They’re gone on the ships.” the guitarist answered the second question.

“Oh, I’m sorry sir.” Gaël blushed, under his mums’ glare. One did not ask about people who had left on the ship.

“It’s quite all right” answered Brian.

But through the flash of pain even a little girl could notice in the two old men’s eyes, Rosa understood why that rule existed. And determined to change the subject she asked:

“Mr May, Mr Taylor, can you please tell us stories about Queen?”

Katia was about to chastise her daughter for asking, even if she was quite interested herself, but she saw the smile on the two men’s faces as they agreed to tell stories, and so, as they had just finished desert, she offered to move the storytelling to the living room, asking Sandrine to bring the tea and biscuits to go with it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of experimenting with an almost all-dialogue chapter. Not something I do often, hope you enjoy it.

“So Rog, which story should we tell the little girl?”

“Please, I want to hear about the concerts on the Edge!” Rosa managed not to squeal

“Concert on the Edge, eh” repeated Roger, eyes gleaming with mischievousness

“Not that one, Rog, she’s ten.”

“Brian, who do you think I am. I do have kids. Well. Had.” He managed a sad smile.

Katia, to avoid the subject – oh she hoped the children had just left on the ships and had not perished with England – asked

“So you have done some concerts on the Edge? Isn’t that I don’t know, dangerous.”

“Well, it kind of is the point.” said Roger smile back on his face. - Then probably the ships, thought Katia. Or a very very long time ago but he did not seem old enough for that.

Sandrine had gone to make some more tea.

“What’s a concert on the Edge, sir?” asked little Gaël.

“How can you not know that!” protested Rosa affronted “It’s the greatest thing in the whole world.”

“No that’s trains”

“Outside of trains. And I literally talk about it all of the time. Do you never listen to me when I talk?”

“Well” interrupted Brian “When they evacuate a place because the Entity is getting too close, people go to play music there one last time. We can use as much electricity and technology as we want because the place is already condemned, and it’s well, a show of defiance I guess. And we play as long as it’s safe.”

“And sometimes a bit longer” added Roger.

“Yes. So it was a long time ago. What year was that again Rog?”

“171 I believe? Deacs had just joined us right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think you’re right.”

“Well, good thing I remember times and place.”

“Sure is, my friend, sure is. So we were headed to Scotland that had just started getting destroyed back then. We all lived in London at that time, so it was quite a long way away to get there. We took the train as far North as we could get, but then the line was closed already. And so we had to find another way to go further North.”

“And so, you see, little girl, the people who had organized this thing had only managed to procure us with oxen and a carriage. Stubborn, smelly, nasty oxen. Even Brian can’t deny how annoying those animals were.”

“Well...”

“Come on! You hated them as much as all of us back then.”

“Well, I mostly hated he carriage. It was just to small to carry your drums.”

“And your long legs, Bri. Let’s not forget your long legs.”

“Anyhow, we did had some trouble getting everything and ourselves into the carriage. And then it was not easy to persuade the oxen to move. Thankfully, it turned out our new bassist had some hidden talents.”

“Yeah, cause you literally tried to reason with them, Freddie was cooing I guess, and I was just laughing at you to hard to be able to do anything. And he just took the reins moved it twice made a weird noise and there we went.”

“The journey was not the most comfortable and it took a while”

“Understatement of the century, mate” - their was barely enough space for the four of them, the person guiding was outside, and it had rained quite a bit, and they had kept getting splinters in their fingers rendering the whole playing music afterwards rather painful. And it had lasted three days. Without a shower. It stank.

“But we got there.”

“And how was the concert?” asked Rosa

“Well, there were some technical difficulties.”

“Meaning Fred’s bloody mike stopped working half way through so he had to sing the rest of the show in ours. Mostly John’s.” expanded Roger

“Which was admittedly fun to watch.”

“Yes it was.”

“But how was the music, the crowd?” prompted Rosa, again.

“There were maybe 120 people there which really was not bad, considering. And I guess some songs could have been played better”

Roger rolled his eyes, and Brian continued to talk, unperturbed

“But I do have quite a fond memory of this shows. And the public was quite enthusiastic. They were dancing, and singing...”

“And drinking...” added Roger “Yeah, the last day on Earth vibe does seem to get people pretty excited in what they do.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“And how did you get home.”

“Well, we did stay a bit too long. We packed everything back in the carriage, but decided to stay for a few beers after that.” Brian looked pointedly at Roger

“It was not only my fault, Freddie wanted to stay too!”

“Yeah, right. Anyhow, we stayed too long, and the way back was a bit of a rush, well, it was not fun.”

“It was the first time we saw the Entity right?”

“Yeah. Wish it had been the last.” The dirty yellow smoke rising from the horizon, the stillness in the air, had given the alarm. Everyone had fled, had run. The Entity was not moving fast there, but they had had no way to know if they were not getting surrounded. And if it touches you you’re dead. No second chances. They had jumped on the carriage. They everyone that was still there had had something to flee on, most people had their bikes.

“You drove right?” asked Brian

“Yeah, I did”

“We were all scared.” Brian remembered the absolute concentration on Roger’s pale face, his own repeating in his head of the name of all the star systems he could think of to keep his mind off the possibility of his own demise, Freddie biting his fingers and John trembling. And then Freddie had started to cheer them up.

“And Freddie” Brian told “He just started telling jokes. I don’t remember them anymore and they were probably fairly bad jokes, but he kept on telling them. And it worked.”

“I think John was the first to laugh.”

“Yeah, and then we could not stop. We were all a bit exhausted to be honest. And after a while we actually enjoyed the trip home.”

“And you went back to the Edge again?” asked Rosa

“We sure did. The thrill was worth it, little Rosie!” said Roger.

“And we got to see parts of the Earth for the last time too.”

“You have gone to place I will never get to see, now.” commented Sandrine.

A silence fell on the room at her words. And then the discussion moved to other things. To where they had found tea, and how to make biscuits with what food was still available with how dwindling the available lands were. The kids were sent to bed, being promised stories some other days. This promise made to the children was followed a few hours later by a renewed invitation and a promise to come back. And so the evening ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end of the first installment in this series. I'll keep the series going. Please don't hesitate to tell me what you thought.   
> Cheers, people!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this ! Don't hesitate to comment those give me life.  
> Feedback is appreciated.  
> Cheers, everyone.


End file.
